


Sunflowers and Bees

by knightinpinkunderwear



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Childhood Sweethearts, College, Cute, Cute Kids, Cutesy, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, Growing Up Together, Happy Ending, High School, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Past Child Abuse, Sweet, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Wedding Fluff, summer wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-14 19:16:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15395592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightinpinkunderwear/pseuds/knightinpinkunderwear
Summary: Lucius meets Ed as a kid and they spend their whole lives together.





	Sunflowers and Bees

 

Lucius first met Edward Albert Nashton in a summer of sunflowers and bees. It was hot and everything was lush and green, the honeysuckles grew by the bushel and tasted like little dew drops of candy. Edward was new. He moved in with Miss Josephine (that grew lemons on her front porch and had a tabby cat named Dr. Pawsitive). Edward was small and quiet, with big glasses that made his eyes look big and scared all the time. He had been seen the boy around, usually sitting in Miss Josephine's front yard, reading, or catching bugs in his tiny hands. He got startled easily though, by the noisy cars chortling by or Mom's lawnmower. He was what adults liked to call shy, hiding behind plants and Miss Josephine when people came to say hello.

Lucius didn't think he was shy. Edward talked a lot, mostly to the plants and to the beetles he caught. Lucius gave him a cricket one day. Edward looked at the bug then he looked at Lucius, big eyes blinking behind even bigger glasses. Edward was his friend in a matter of days. They read together and talked about what they learned, then they went off exploring into the park, climbing trees and sitting under bushes. Lucius brought Edward to lunch one day. Amais and Jules were a little overbearing, but Mom got them to be less so. Edward was very well behaved, but it was scary well behaved. He kept his head down and said please and thank you, ma'am, for everything. Mom didn't think so, she thought he was just a nice and well-mannered boy. 

"Your family is very nice," 

"Isn't Miss Josephine nice?"

"Yes, Auntie Jo is very nice, she even takes me to see Grampa and Granma!"

"What about your parents, where's your mom and dad?" Edward's face went white and his eyes looked bigger than normal. 

"Can we talk about something else?"

And they did. All through the summer they talked and read and played together. When the apples started ripening they were sent up the trees with makeshift bags tied to their fronts. Miss Josephine taught them how to make an Apple pie, and applesauce too. Summer came to a close and Lucius had still never seen nor heard a thing about Edward's parents. School started up and Edward was in his school, in his class too. He mostly stuck around with Lucius, Amais, and Jules. Though he did make friends with Myrtle.  

School year after school year, summer after summer, Edward stayed with his Aunt Josephine and no one heard from or met his parents. Soon they were biking off to middle school together. Then boarding the rickety bus to high school. It was the summer before senior year when Edward finally talked about his parents. About the awful things they said about him, the things they'd done to him. How they'd hurt him.

Lucius hugged him and said what came to mind. "It's not your fault. You didn't deserve that. You are so strong." 

It was winter break of senior year. Lucius was over, going through college options before the Nashton's nightly Hanukkah celebration started. (Lucius was welcome there just as Edward was welcome over for Christmas). It was winter break sorting through their application papers to ensure everything was in order for a February deadline when Lucius noticed it. 

It had been a tiny little thing, now It was almost glaringly obvious. Oh. He liked Edward. He always had. That's why he wasn't interested in Katie _or_ Michael. Huh. It was Edward all along. He'd been so smitten this whole time. 

And so with all the grace of any seventeen-year-old boy, he blurted it out like an idiot. "I like you!" 

"Are you okay?" Edward looked confused, he'd probably either missed what his best friend since forever had said, that or he wasn't processing it yet. 

"I like you! That's why I never went out with anyone!" 

"Oh." Lucius didn't know what to make of that. Whether to panic or rejoice or- "I think I like you too," Edward offered, sheepish and still caught off guard. His ears were pink. It wasn't cold enough inside to make his ears pink. Which meant- oh. _Oh._ Edward did like him in _that_ way. So, once again, like the awkward teenage idiots they were, they sat completely still biting their own lips and blushing furiously at each other. That is until a chuckle from the door interrupted.

Miss Josephine. She was wearing a knowing smirk, a spark of mirth dancing in her eyes behind large round glasses.

"Took you boys long enough!" In all honesty, Lucius would have been a little insulted, but he was a teenager, his brain was chock full of unbalanced hormones and he was starting to figure out who he was. So, it wasn't too insulting that the guardian of his crush had figured out their situation a while ago. "Looks like Mandy won the bet though," Miss Josephine muttered. Bet? Of course, his mom and Edward's aunt were betting on when he and Ed figured it out. He wasn't surprised, and Edward didn't look surprised either. Just pink-faced with a goofy grin, biting his lip to keep back an embarrassed chuckle. Lucius smiled back. And they both cackled at their own expenses. Of course, their families would figure it out before them, of course, they'd bet on it, and looking back the two boys could see all the little nudges. How their families had tried to get through that when they figured it out they'd have full approval and support. 

They went to senior prom together and left early because the idiot running the smoke machine didn't understand that humans need oxygen. And the DJ didn't understand that one needs rhythm to dance, furthermore one needs to be able to hear something other than the sound of their eardrums being decimated by noise. They fled to the park. Laughing as they lay beneath the stars. Sharing increasingly ridiculous stories of space exploration and diplomacy. Ending in a debate on how interplanetary immigration would work. Thinking up political ads; _"Do you want Martians stealing your jobs?!"_ It was wonderful. 

Graduation was hot and sticky. But the first week at Gotham U wasn't. Freshman year went by with chess club, new-found freedom, a few gained pounds, and grey weather. Sophomore year they rented an apartment together. Internships and midterms, exams and take out. It was all exhilarating (and stressful). A break up that barely lasted a week and they were closer than ever. Traveling back to their families every summer. 

Then they were officially adults in the real world, accepted for jobs and part of the Gotham workforce. Edward was a cooking instructor at the Gotham Culinary School and Lucius a theoretical chemist for Wayne Industries. Real adults. 

The day Lucius planned to propose was set up like an ordinary lunch break date, (how they both managed to get the same lunch break he didn't know). He had stalled Edward in front of a pretty fountain on the walking route to the restaurant. Then he got down on one knee and pulled out the box. And Edward started chuckling, smiling behind his hands as he doubled over laughing. Lucius didn't know how to interpret that response. Then Ed pulled a small velvet box out of his pocket. And Lucius joined in, laughing like the ironic lovebirds they were. Maneuvering to sit on the edge of the fountain, holding one another and still giggling. Over lunch, they both explained their proposal schemes, still giggly on how they managed to decide on the same random day. Kisses goodbye then back off to work before they walked home together that evening. Thomas Wayne, was a little confused when he asked how it went, only to see that Lucius was wearing a ring. Lucius laughed as he explained the double proposal. 

He and Edward went back home for the wedding, having it in the park where they made countless childhood and teenage memories, catching bugs, climbing trees, reading, stargazing, games of chess, and picnics. It was the end of summer when Lucius got married. Sunflowers and bees everywhere, they danced in the grass and dandelions, laughed under the shade of green trees and smiled in the warmth of the sun and the joy of their love. He wouldn't trade anything for it. No matter how itchy and sticky his clothes got, or how sore his feet. What mattered was that Edward was here, leaning into his side with a face-splitting gooey-eyed grin. He was in love. With a boy that he met in a summer so long ago.

So like two sunflowers they kept their heads held high, facing the only person in the world who seemed as important and radiant as the sun.

(Each other.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> If me and Dearie have to fill this tag alone, by god we will. 
> 
> Foxma needs more love and more content, I can make content and hope that it will receive love. 
> 
> I hope you liked that! I spent a while on it and I just wanted to do something sweet and summery.


End file.
